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Friday, 3 July 2015

Friday gem: The Coral Cave- An Irabucha’s Dream

This is a soothing sight for the eyes on this lovely sunny Friday. I've been following the work of Atelier Sentô - the name of the beautiful Japanese bathouse where artists Cecile Brun and Olivier Pichard work together- for a while, largely as they've developed The Coral Cave, a handmade, watercolour-painted point and click adventure game. The duo also create comics: last year they shared a few in-process sketches and completed pages for a comic called Natsuko, which is yet to see print, and produced a gorgeous 24-page story for Josh Tierney's fantasy series, Spera: The Ascension of the Starless, published by Archaia earlier in 2015. As you can no doubt see from the pictures here, the work is very reminiscent of the Miyazaki animation aesthetic, although with bolder, brighter colours and lines.

I'm not terribly into games of any kind, although I enjoy looking at the art and design aspects of them, so when I saw they were now selling a new mini-comic set in the same world as their game, I bought it immediately. The Coral Cave - An Irabucha’s Dream is a 20-page standalone story available in both English and French (English translation by Josh Tierney), and it sounds delightful: 'Life is peaceful on Mizuka’s island until a rumor begins spreading amongst the village children: that a strange creature is playing tricks on humans, and is doing everything it can to not be seen. Mizuka decides to solve the mystery.' I'm a big fan of the duo's beautiful painted art, and that little premise sounds like exactly the kind of thing I'd enjoy; excited for it to arrive. The comic ships worldwide, and each copy comes signed and contains a original watercolour sketch. You can order it here.